To a Louse

Robert Burns · 1786 CE · Poem · English · Romantic

In a church pew a louse makes its way steadily up the bonnet of a fine young lady who has no idea it is there, and the speaker addresses the creature with mock outrage at its choice of ground. It ought to be on some poor body's ragged hair, not strutting among the gauze and lace of Miss Jenny's new Lunardi. The wish that follows, for the gift to see ourselves as others see us, became the most quoted couplet in Scots.

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